“Did he give you a description?” I asked.
“No. He told me not to worry my pretty head about it and focus on my objective, which was to snare you.”
Selene’s words hung in the air between us. I knew she spoke the truth, and she’d previously admitted it, but it still stung my male ego. I wanted to inspire her pursuit, not have it dictated. On the other hand, I’d believed her when she said she was truly attracted to me—and her kisses confirmed her words.
“So we come back to an unknown assassin,” I said. “But at least there’s a clearer motive. I need to talk to Bartholomew Campbell again.”
“He’s likely at his Solstice gathering,” Reine pointed out. “My kind makes complaints every time his filthy pack descends on the islands. He in particular disturbs the selkies.”
“I can probably get him to come back,” I said. “I just need to find my phone and call his secretary. She owes me a favor, and we need to talk again, anyway.”
Max and Reine left with the admonition that even if I wanted to go after Wolfsheim and Bartholomew Campbell, I needed to wait until the rays of the coming dawn allowed the last of Reine’s cure to work. She didn’t compel me, but the possibility hung in the air between us, and I felt the resentment from my toes. Or maybe it was whatever was growing within me to bring me to my full power. However it worked, I agreed to be a good little doggie and sit and stay.
Or maybe not so good. Instead of leaving with the other two, Selene stayed and looked into the fire as I said my goodbyes. Her face held a neutral expression, and her posture, while contemplative, didn’t indicate the valence of her thoughts. Her still, closed aspect reminded me of her profession as a psychologist, but I wanted to ask her the questions. Did it feel good for her to have the big, ugly secrets off her chest? Or did she feel more vulnerable and conflicted now that she’d revealed what she knew? How would this affect her brother?
As though she read my mind, she said, “We can only have tonight, Gabriel. I can’t lead you into danger, and I have to go to Curtis and use what little influence I have to protect him against Wolfsheim.”
Her words chilled me, and I moved to stand behind her at the fire. “Let me help you.”
She turned and wrapped her arms around me. Her body radiated heat and chased the vestiges of the sensations from Reine’s spell away, and I bent my head to her copper hair, which reflected the color of the flames. It smelled of my shampoo—she’d taken a shower while Reine worked, apparently—and I stifled a growl of satisfaction at the small scent indicating possession.
Where the hell did that come from?
I didn’t want to become a totalitarian alpha like Bartholomew. I wanted to be more like David, who did his own thing and held his enemies at bay with the promise of strength rather than the brute force use of it.
David. Now when I pulled Selene to me, it was as much for my own comfort as for hers. I closed my eyes and called to mind how he’d looked mocking me in his kitchen for pursuing her and his good-natured teasing, but the image of his bloody demise tried to intrude. I opened my eyes and looked at the flames instead, wishing I had some sort of talent to divine what I should do.
“Gabriel, I’m loving this, but I’m getting hot,” Selene said, but she didn’t pull away. Instead, she snuggled in. “You’ve had a rough week.”
I let her change the subject, but I vowed to convince her to let me help her. “You have, too,” I said. I picked her up and carried her to the sofa. We sat with her on my lap, and I asked, “What shall we do about our weeks?”
“I can think of a very effective kind of stress relief.” She traced my jaw with her hand, and she allowed her fingernails to rake through the stubble under my chin, bending my head to hers. The sensation and sound went directly to my groin, and I had to acquiesce to her command.
Our lips met. Now there was nothing between us, no secrets, and we found a rhythm underscored by the crackle of the fire and the howl of the wind outside. I slid one hand up the outside of her leg while holding her close to me with the other one. She put her hands on either side of my face and ran her fingertips down my neck and across my shoulders under my robe.
“This isn’t fair,” I murmured. “You’re wearing many more clothes than I am.”
She pulled back with a wicked grin and stood. I reached for her, but she eluded me.
“Sit, stay,” she said, and I growled, but I didn’t have much of a choice.
“You don’t know what kind of beast you’re messing with, my dear,” I said.
She laughed. Unlike Reine’s, Selene’s chuckle had depth and sunshine, and it spoke of chases through the dappled sunlight of the trees. I found it preferable to the icy wind chimes of the Fey’s.
“Just watch,” she said, and I did.
She turned to face the fire, gathered her long, red-gold hair, and pulled it over her right shoulder. The set of her shoulders and the movements of her elbows told me she unbuttoned her shirt, and I moved to stand, wanting to see the fire flickering over her pale skin and to count her freckles with my lips.
“Stay,” she whispered. She opened the shirt to the fire and slid it down off her shoulders and back. It fell to the floor, and she held out her arms so I could see her silhouette. As most of us do, she had good proportion and muscle tone, and who am I kidding? My eyes immediately went to the hint of the curve of her breasts at her sides, and my mouth went dry at the realization she wore no bra.
“Care to help me with my pants?” she asked with an over-the-shoulder glance that brought me to my feet and to stand behind her before my brain could command it.
“You bewitch me,” I said, my breath swaying the little hairs by her ear. The view of her pale front was even better than I had imagined, and I cupped her breasts and lightly caressed her pale pink nipples with my thumbs.
“Pants, Gabriel,” she breathed, but she leaned back into me.
“In a moment. Sit, stay.”
I nibbled and play-bit her neck on the side opposite where she’d gathered her hair from her ear lobe down to her shoulder. As I’d hoped, she had a light dusting of freckles across her skin, and I kissed every one I could see and a few the flickering light hinted at. All the while, I savored the weight of her breasts in my hands and the hardness of their tips. She ground her butt into my front, and I feathered my fingertips over her ribs and slid my hands down her belly until I found the button of her jeans, which I unfastened. I hooked my fingers over the straps of her panties as well and slid the whole mess to her ankles. She tangled her fingers in my hair for balance and stepped out of them.
Now she stood completely naked in front of me, and again, she reminded me of a pagan priestess, strong and in command. Only her eyes, the slight o of her lips, and the flush of her skin told me she was mine for the taking. I pulled her to me.
“You’re sure about this,” I said. “This is you wanting it and no other.”
“You could’ve asked me that before I got undressed,” she said, “but gods, yes, Gabriel. I want you. And it’s just me.”
I pulled a condom out of my robe pocket and allowed the flannel to fall to the floor so we stood with nothing physical in the way. She tore the packet open with her teeth, and I had to tamp down the desire to just pick her up and take her without protection. To make matters worse, she grabbed my cock. The feel of her light, slender fingers wrapped around its ruddy length nearly made me lose control.
Finally, she rolled the condom over me, and I picked her up. It showed my weakness from the evening’s events that I couldn’t hold her up, so I gently kneeled and laid her on my robe in front of the fire. She was more than ready when I slid into her, and again we picked up nature’s rhythm. The flames roamed over her skin along with my tongue and hand, and she explored my body as well, her touch sending shivers to my core and driving me to more intensity. We cried our release simultaneously, and it felt that even the fire was quieter for a beat after.
I rolled off her, and she snuggled up to me with her back to my
front. We dozed there in front of the fire, our heads pillowed on her clothes and my robe over us.
“I’m not letting you go,” I murmured in her ear.
“Please don’t,” she replied, her eyes closed. “At least not ’til the morning.”
“Not even then. Sit, stay.”
I wish I had some sort of explanation, maybe the remainder of Reine’s magic folding over us or some other influence, but all I can say is that I fell into a deep slumber. When I woke to the tingling sensation of the first sunbeams of dawn, my head rested on a throw pillow, my arms were empty, and a ghost watched me.
25
I used to find you like this in our bedroom closet, asleep on a robe,” he said as I scrambled to cover myself. I felt like a teenager who got busted making out with his girlfriend—or worse—by his parents.
“Haven’t you heard of knocking?” I asked. “Waiting for an invitation? Good gods, were you watching?”
“I gave you your privacy, but you know I didn’t teach you like this, son. Do you and the young lady have some sort of understanding? Are you at least engaged?”
I turned to him, open-mouthed with shock and feeling all of fifteen. “What do you mean you didn’t teach me like this? You died before I was even looking at girls.”
“But I always taught you to respect women.”
“Oh, I do respect her even though she drives me crazy. Now, do you have something important to say? I need to go after her before she sacrifices herself to some crazy vargamore who wants to use her as bait!”
“Find him. Find Wolfsheim. Expose the influence of the Silver Arrow and what they did to destroy me. Then I can find peace.”
With those words, he was gone. I ran my hands through my hair and tried to get my brain to calm down enough to make a plan. The doorbell and the phone rang simultaneously.
I grabbed the phone and padded to the door. The peephole showed me Rhys, the scarred Fey, standing on the other side. Great. Even worse, when I answered the phone, it was Morena. Even better.
“Emergency Council meeting in one hour,” she said. “No excuses.”
“How can we have a Council meeting? Cora Campbell is in the Hebrides with Bartholomew.”
“They’re both back. Be there, Gabriel. More rides on this than I can say.” And she hung up.
I flung the phone into the study and opened the door. Now that I was finally faced with the witness to the murder, I didn’t have time to talk to him.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“I warned you to stay away from us,” Rhys said. He stood with his hands in the pockets of a black leather jacket, and I shivered when the chill breeze hit my bare legs.
“I’ll ask again, Rhys. What do you want? Unless it’s to give me a description of the man who killed David Lachlan or tell me where Selene Rial is, I’m not interested in talking to you.”
“T’waren’t no man,” he said, and his mouth twisted into a smug grin. “T’was a woman. Thin with short black hair. Kinda green, if you know what I mean.”
“Jade?” I gasped, the pieces of the puzzle shifting and my world along with it. “That’s impossible! She’s not strong enough to have done that.” But my mind catalogued the clues that pointed in her direction, specifically her interest in the cure, how she posed as a broker between me and the Young Bloods, the killer’s smell in the basement of the Campbells’ company headquarters, and the likely person to have gotten a sample of Campbell’s blood to LeConte…
“Physically she int. But the girl’s got some magic to ’er.”
“And Selene?” I asked, both pleased that all roads seemed to lead to Bartholomew Campbell and annoyed that they might go past him.
“The boss said to give this to you.” He pulled a braid of copper-colored hair out of his pocket. It was woven into a love-knot, and it tingled with power. “Be at the ruins at sundown. He said you’d know what it meant since you been snooping around there in your wolf form. There you’ll be able to make a deal to save your ladylove.” He nodded toward the coil of hair in my hand. “Or I’ll be bringing you her scalp next.”
I barely had time to take a shower before I had to leave for the Council meeting, but there wasn’t any reason to let the rest of them know what I’d been up to. Another problem with lycanthropy I now thought about in a different way. Did the Young Bloods know when their friends had been hooking up more than they wanted to? In this social media-driven society, it would be one way to stay ahead of the flow of information and know things before their friends did, but perhaps they balked at the unintentional invasion of privacy.
In spite of the chill, I drove with the top down to allow the storm-cleansed air to clear my head. The same questions chased each other in a maddening circle: why wouldn’t Selene let me help her? Why did she leave? What were they going to do to her? What could I do to stop them? Why was I going to the Council meeting instead of chasing down Rhys and Wolfsheim and getting her back?
Because there was something that needed to happen first. It wasn’t just the timing of the summons from Wolfsheim, but something else. If I was going to take him on, I needed to be at full strength, and my instincts told me that would happen after the Council meeting. No, I didn’t know why—something in my blood older than my weight of years just told me to, and I obeyed it.
Sit, stay, prepare…
I first noticed the difference when I walked into Lycan Castle. Formerly the tapestries had seemed faded and old, but today they blazed with color and gore as they told the story of our lycanthropic heritage. While I’d spent a lot of time studying them as a young werewolf, I had no idea what I looked at, only battles with men and other creatures. Now one drew me in particular: a battlefield spread over five of the hangings. In the forefront, a grisly scene worthy of Bosch, where humans and hairy demons fought against other humans and wolves. There was a sense the hairy demons were going to win. In the background, a gaunt figure raised a sword toward an army of wolves, and I’d always thought it rallied them, but perhaps it held them back. Could it be Wolfsheim had become immortalized in tapestry, and I’d been studying him all along?
“Don’t dawdle, McCord.”
I turned with a snarl to see Morena standing behind me, her crossed arms enhancing her fireplug appearance.
“This could be important,” I said. “Who is that, and what is he holding?”
She squinted at the place on the tapestry where I pointed. “That is the foul vargamore Wolfsheim.” She shook her head. “Of all the tapestries for you to notice… The others tell of our victories, but this one is a reminder of our greatest defeat.”
“No one told me about it.”
“We don’t like to talk about how our kind failed Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden. He counted on us, and we didn’t show up.” She pointed to Wolfsheim. “The tales vary on how he managed to influence us, whether it was a poison that made the soldiers sleep through the short battle or some more sort of direct magic, but whatever happened, we let our guard down and failed. This tapestry is cautionary.”
“What can one do against a vargamore?” I asked. “Neither wizards nor we have been able to control a creature who has all our talents.”
“They don’t have full wizard or werewolf abilities, only a subset. All you can do is hope to outsmart him before he influences you. The element of surprise is best.”
I looked again at the battle. “What about bringing a second one?”
She smirked. “You’re thinking about Lonna Marconi-Fortuna, aren’t you? She is young and untrained.”
“But powerful, or at least that’s what I’m told. Plus Max is in danger of being captured and tortured by the other wizards.”
“Those are all little moving pieces in this great big chaotic mess, Gabriel.” She moved toward the hallway to the Council Chamber, and I followed. “The worst of which is David Lachlan’s death.”
I bowed my head to keep the lump in my throat from expanding into tears. “He was a great wolf.”
�
�Who got too close to something that wanted to stay hidden,” she said. She stopped just before we entered the hallway and put a hand on my arm. In a low voice, she warned me, “David’s charge was to investigate the Order of the Silver Arrow and try to keep track of their activities. Someone tipped them off that he was doing it, and that’s what caused his death.” Her gaze bored into mine. “Tell me it wasn’t you, that you’re not the leak.”
“Morena, I swear by both my parents’ graves that I didn’t speak of it to anyone, on or outside the Council. I didn’t even know until two nights ago that he had information of that sort. He told me he knew they had something to do with my father’s death.”
She nodded once, curtly. “I knew it wasn’t you. That leaves five others. That’s why we’re here. News of David’s death hasn’t gone out publicly yet. You’re to help me flush out our snitch, and potentially our murderer.”
“Look to the Campbells,” I said. “Too much points in their direction to be a coincidence.”
“I hope it’s that easy, but sometimes the most obvious answer isn’t the right one.”
Just before we walked in, my phone buzzed with a text from Lonna: Looked through LC’s analyses further. Found another surprise. Call me.
“You might be right,” I said to Morena. “My vargamore has an interesting piece of news for me. I’ll join you in a moment.”
“I’ll wait.” She crossed her arms and planted her feet. But then Dimitri Corvair rounded the corner. His narrow features lit when he saw her, and his heavy black brows rose.
“Ah, Lady Morena,” he said and took her arm. “Just the person I hoped to see. Do you have time for a word before the meeting?”
She allowed him to steer her away from the Council Chamber but looked over her shoulder at me. “Don’t forget,” she mouthed. “I need to know.”
I waved her off and called Lonna. I followed them away from the chamber but took a different turn to bring me to a parlor we used as a waiting room for visiting dignitaries. It smelled of little-circulated air, and I sneezed just as Lonna answered her phone.
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